MUMBAI: The largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank on Monday announced a tie-up with leading payments company Paytm to launch a range of co-branded credit cards powered by global card network Visa before the onset of the festive season in October.

HDFC Bank was banned from issuing new credit cards for over eight months as a penalty for frequent outages by the Reserve Bank of India, when which it was the largest player in the credit card segment. After the lifting of the ban, it outlined aggressive plans to regain lost market share in up to a year.

In a statement, HDFC Bank said, "With over 51 million credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards and over 2 million merchants, addressing every market segment, every third rupee spent on cards in India happens on HDFC Bank cards," further adding, "This alliance will target deeper penetration in tier-II and tier-III markets and enable faster acceleration of digitized payments across the country."

Commenting on the pact, HDFC Bank's group head for consumer finance and digital banking & IT, Parag Rao said, "As India’s largest card issuing and acquiring bank, we are committed to accelerating the adoption of digitization in the country."

Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending said, "At Paytm, we aim to democratize the access to credit to drive financial inclusion amongst our 330mn plus consumers and 21mn plus merchant partners."